Fritz Honka – Serial Killer from Hamburg's Red-Light District

Serial Killer in the St. Pauli District

Fritz Heinrich Honka murdered four women in his tiny 150-square-foot attic apartment at Kieler Straße 9 in Hamburg's notorious St. Pauli district. The alcoholic shipyard worker strangled his victims after drinking sessions together, dismembered the bodies, and hid the body parts in cupboards, under the roof, and behind wall panels.

Only when a fire broke out in his apartment on July 9, 1975, did firefighters discover the mummified remains. The four victims were all women from the prostitution scene: Anna Struwe (58 years old), murdered January 11, 1971, Frieda Ebeling (murdered 1972), Wilma Katschinski (murdered 1974), and Heidi Fiedler (approximately 42 years old), who as the youngest died on January 9 or 10, 1975.

Honka had met all the women in bars such as "Zum Paddel" or "Zur Katze," where he was a regular patron.

Hamburg's Underworld in the 1970s

St. Pauli in the early 1970s was a district characterized by poverty, alcoholism, and crime. The Reeperbahn formed the center of the red-light district with countless bars, brothels, and shelters for the homeless. Fritz Honka moved through this environment, earning his living as a worker at the Norddeutsches Lloyd shipyard and spending his evenings in the pubs around Davidstraße.